Who are my mother and my brothers?

Back in the mid 80s, when I was parish priest of Raiwaqa parish, we used to put on a contemporary way of the cross in which we would portray how Jesus would be put to death today. This Way of the Cross drama took about three months to prepare. Following each rehearsal, the actors would be questioned about their portrayal of the different roles. I remember one year how the woman who was playing Mary, the mother of Jesus, was not very convincing. I asked her why she didn’t sense the pain of watching her innocent son being dragged to the cross. She told us that she could not feel any deep pain because she had been bought up to believe that Mary knew her son would rise from the dead and so she wasn’t really worried about him dying on a cross! I told her to think about a local woman of the parish whose son had died in prison by being beaten up and asked this woman to portray the pain of that woman. In the end she gave a very powerful and moving portrayal of Mary and, during the reflection following the drama which was carried out on Good Friday morning, she told of how she came to know of Mary in a completely new way as a woman who suffered so deeply that she could feel the pain of all mothers whose children were unjustly condemned to death.

 

I think of this incident as I read today’s gospel about the mother and the brothers of Jesus looking for him in Mark 3:31-35. It appears that they thought that Jesus had lost his mind and was heading along a dangerous path and were probably trying to persuade him to come home. This was beginning of a painful journey for Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she struggled to understand who her son was and what he was on about. In the end, she stayed with him to his death and burial. She represents all mothers who stand by their children even when they struggle to understand the dangerous stands they take in the name justice and truth.